There's a special "tipped minimum wage" for employees that are tipped that is lower than the regular minimum wage (federal minimum wage hasn't been raised since 2007).
They canât be. If tips donât cover the minimum wage the employer has to cover the difference. In practice servers and bartenders make much, much more than minimum wage unless youâre at some tiny mom and pop restaurant in a podunk town somewhere. I ran a multi state restaurant group and our servers were averaging $26 an hour in tips (not including the $2.13 base rate). When I was younger I hit $70k one year as a bartender
I think a lot of people believe servers are the equivalent to panhandlers on the streets, surviving off scraps. But most actually do well for themselves. $70k is a lot more than most teachers make and you donât even have to pay for a degree. The right kind of person in the right kind of place can make bank without working 60 hours a week.
They count the tip as part of the wage, so there is a separate minimum for tipped employees and the assumption is the tips will make up for it.
However, if you make less than the regular minimum wage after tips, your employer is supposed to cover that difference. You are still owed the regular minimum wage regardless of tips.
They can't. If they are actually making less than the base minimum wage (not the tipped minimum) then the restaurant is supposed to make up the difference. The tipped minimum wage is what they get payed by the employer regardless of their tip income once they clear that bar.
The reality is very few servers aren't making well over even the non-tipped minimum wage for hours worked.
Itâs a service based industry. Working for tips is meant to improve service. American diners understand this and appreciate good service and tip accordingly. Not a big deal. Just tip well if service was good.
That's not what I was asking. I understand the rationale behind paying serving staff poverty wages and making them work for tips. My question was how someone can be paid below the MINIMUM wage, given that it is by definition the least a person can be legally paid.
As the other poster commented, there is a different minimum wage for food service (from other industries) because we know that that difference will be made up by the tips (keeps the sticker shock down on food prices) and if they arenât made up by the tips, then the business owners is responsible for making up the difference.
However, as diners, we donât want the servers to make âminimumâ wage (livable wage). We want them to make the wage they earned by serving well.
If you think about how flight attendants are paid, itâs also abnormal. They can be doing a work task, and not be being paid. For example, itâs my understanding the flight attendants donât get paid until the plane pushes back, but they can be on the plane for 20, 30, 60 minutes (with delays) or more doing work and not be paid for any of that time. Is that fair? I donât think so, but I donât work in that industryâŚ
There are other quirks from state to state, since we are so large. Some states pay over time (1.5x) at any time worked over eight hours in a single day. While other states only pay overtime if you work more than 40 hours in a week (5days). Some states require double time after a certain number of our hours like 10 or 12 while other states never require double time. Some some states require a meal break, which is unpaid, to be permitted to the employees and some states donât require an unpaid meal break.
We roll with it.
I think the main lesson learned here is that when you visit another country, review local cultural details. When I travel to Peru, Iceland, India, or Germany, I read up on local cultural differences, tipping, getting around safely, travel tips. Itâs just basic travel research to be sure youâre aware of whatâs expected and not to be unknowingly offensive. It can still happen, but any jackass can google the top 10 things to know when visiting the US and get a leg up. **For example, in the USA, never ever ever and I mean NEVER get out of your car if you are pulled over by the police, unless you are instructed to do so. ** And tip your server 10-15% standard, and 20% if they knocked your socks off.
The only time servers can be paid less than the minimum wage is when their wage+tips EXCEED the minimum.
If you imagine a server receiving zero tips, in that scenario the employer has to pay them $15/hr. The only time they can pay them less is when they are already earning more.
Not to mention most restaurant staff get paid way more than minimum wage after tips. No one in the service industry wants tips to end and to shift to a âlivable wageâ model, especially if they are at least average looking or attractive
It's allowed because servers want it this way. If you only thing you made was minimum wage, nobody would be lining up for jobs in the service industry. The tips are what draws people in because you can make a lot of money. I paid my way through college bartending
I understand your point and I'm glad that your experience worked out positively, but we both know that the universal experience isn't always sunshine and rainbows.
Nowhere did I say wait staff should be paid the absolute minimum legally allowed. They should be paid appropriately.
And it's allowed because business owners want it that way, not the other way around.
I guess my point was more that if I had to choose between making $5.63 an hour plus tips, or making $16 an hour, I would have taken the $5.63 every time because I made far more than $16 an hour on average with tips. (About double that) and that was over 10 years ago
Right, but if you had the option between making $5.63 an hour and $25-35 an hour so even on slow nights you were covered would you still pick $5.63 an hour?
Do you believe that the universal server experience is that the average is always high?
Yes, I would personally still choose it because never did I only make 5.63 an hour overall. I will say that now, as a consumer, I would far prefer to pay a set price and not have to tip.
In California now, the minimum is $15 an hour, plus tips. Fast food like McDonald's is $20 an hour, no tips.
itâs because the average consumer decides based on menu price, not total calculated price and there is a lot of psychology involved with thinking the food costs less even if it doesnât
You can't pretend some of this isn't on the employees themselves. This bartender I knew was making a killing from tips. There was no way they'd continue working there if tips were gone and they got paid as horribly as everyone else.
Because giant corporations like Sysco control the food supply and charge whatever the fuck they want. Would be nice if the govt could regulate them. While we're at it let's regulate these banks that are subsidized by the govt every so often too. I would like a subsidy as well please
"Voluntary and involuntary tip pooling is legal under both California and federal law, so long as owners, managers, and supervisors do not participate in the pool, even if they provide direct table service."
Youâre going to be dealing with state laws so there will be some variety here, but when I was running a restaurant group the states we operated in all had laws where tipping out BOH staff was illegal, but tipping out FOH staff (bussers/hosts) is not.
The illegality comes in the form of the concept of paying to work. The individual still has to average out to at least minimum wage income, regardless of tips.
So if an individual is paid the âminimumâ tipped employee salary and receives no tips, the employer is then required to pay up to true minimum wage for the time worked.
Reminds me of my experience working as a taxi driver for a shit company. I had to bring a flashlight because the lights didn't work until my car caught on fire and they charged us based on how far we drove so in cases where I would drive out and get ghosted it would come out of my end. I would be lucky to walk off with $20 after a 12 hour shift while the owner was driving a pimp mobile.
Any place I know that tips out back of house does it from their earned tips from the shift. A restaurant wouldn't have servers for long if they were making them pay out money they didn't actually make.
People always say this, but I just got back from the UK, and every single restaurant, pub, etc had a 10-12.5% service charge added to the bill.
I see some people here saying, âwell you can have them remove itâ. But people donât because itâs a hassle, so itâs really no different than tipping.
Trust me, I'm neither from the US or Europe(from NZ) and our Minimum wage is something like 15USD, in the US its closer to 7 bucks in a lot of states, and people on minimum wage here struggle too, imagine how it is in the US.
They made minimum wage virtually unliveable so service workers basically survive off of tips
The whole reason they made the minimum wage virtually unlivable was because they KNOW that service workers can (and do) survive off tips. They can always count on customers paying staff on behalf of the employer out of charity/generosity.
It's not just the low minimum wage the real poison pill is that if you don't make enough in tips to cover the minimum wage gap your boss has to pay the difference which incentivizes business owners to fire wait staff that don't get good tips. Now not only do you have to get enough tips to cover the gap to survive but also to stay employed.
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u/EmeraldDream123 Aug 28 '24
Suggested Tips 20-25%?
Is this normal in the US?